The Rise of the Realists
WSJ: (sub. req'd)
Realist thinkers, who favor more of a pragmatic rather than ideological approach to foreign policy, are starting to find greater traction after years of being overshadowed by the neoconservatives who have dominated President Bush's administration.
As their star rises, some of those realists have created an informal base at a Texas institution founded and named after another Bush: The George H.W. Bush School of Government and Public Policy at Texas A&M University, named after the father of the current president.
...
The Bush School plans to establish a foreign-policy institute similar to ones at Johns Hopkins University's School for Advanced International Studies. SAIS hosts a range of think-tank-like institutes, which mix academia with more direct policy influence. More than a dozen of its faculty members serve as advisers to the federal government; this month, Condoleezza Rice -- considered a realist when she became secretary of state -- tapped SAIS Professor Eliot Cohen to help reformulate administration policy in Iraq and Afghanistan.
The Bush School's version, called the Brent Scowcroft Institute for International Affairs, will be led by Mr. Scowcroft and offer one-year research fellowships to midcareer military officers and civilian government employees.
Rather fascinating that Poppy Bush is naming a branch of his school after one of the foremost GOP critics of his son, isn't it? Of course, HW is famously loyal to his aides, so perhaps there's that too.
It will be interesting to see if this affects the practice of realism in govt. Democrats have largely shunned realism over the past century, although some congressional Democrats have occasionally made realist-sounding speeches in the past few years. I presume this is mostly oppositional politics. On the other hand, W's administration has clearly shied away from balance of power considerations, at least publically.*
The title of this post is a reference to James Mann's seminal The Rise of the Vulcans
In any case, it would be a feather in A&M's cap if this institute eventually rivals that of Princeton and Johns Hopkins.
* Some argue that the war in Iraq was a grand balance of power strategy, removing the Saddam/Sunni blocker on Shiite Iran. In practice, it may turn out that way.
Posted by Evan @ 03/20/07 07:00 AM
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